Making disciples of Christ in Taiwan

Month: May 2013

Greetings from Taipei! We were blessed to have Kelley’s mom with us for the majority of the last month, and we are so grateful for all she did for us- cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc., etc. It was also great fun to watch her get acquainted with her newest grandson J Speaking of him, Max is doing wonderfully and growing by leaps and bounds. At his 1-month check-up last week he had grown 3 inches, and had put on 2 ½ lbs.! He continues to be a joy each day.

How can you being praying for us?

Pray for deepening of relationships among our missional communityco-worker team. The team consists of 2 American couples, 1 American-Taiwanese couple, and 2 single Taiwanese. Pray for unity and direction, as we desire to reach our working-class friends with the love of Jesus!

We will be leaving Taiwan June 6th to begin our 5-month Home Assignment. The first month we’ll be in Germany and England, visiting with family and friends. Please pray for peaceful flights, minimal jet lag, and good health, as we will be covering a lot of territory!

Let’s praise the Lord together!

We are thankful to report that just about all of the $6,000 needed for our Home Assignment travel expenses has come in! Praise the Lord! Our heartfelt thanks to each of you who gave.

We are also thankful that through the generosity of a couple from our home church, we have a car to use during our 4 months in the USA! God is so good!

What a mighty God we serve! Thank you for your continued partnership in the Lord’s work here in Taiwan.

For the Glory of God,Erich and Kelley Schindler

Kelley and Joanne with Max. Joanne is a non-Christian who has been coming to our missional community meetings.

We just wanted to remind everyone that we’re constantly adding to a growing list of Missional Resources on this website. Whether you’re a pastor wanting to take your church cell group to the next level, or a regular Christian wanting to impact your community, we’d encourage you to check out the articles and videos we’ve posted.

We especially wanted to highlight the most recent article we’ve added, entitled “Small Groups that have the DNA of a Gospel Planting Movement.” It’s a very practical case study of how church planters Paul and David Watson used the Discovery Bible Study (i.e. group inductive Bible study) method to catalyze church planting movements around the world. The harvest has been incredible, with over 80,000 churches started in North India, with over 2 million new believers in 18 years. Over 8000 churches have been started in Africa, with over 200,000 new believers, in the last 5 years.

When it comes to our mission of transforming Taipei city, the old additional model of church planting simply won’t do the job. Even if the combined number of new Christians grew at the same rate as Taipei’s overall population growth, the overall Gospel impact would still remain a low 7%. To really infiltrate the culture and bring about systemic change, we need exponential approaches like the ones described in Paul and David’s article above.

Gatherings: twice a week; we meet every Thursday night for church in various team members’ homes, and gather every weekend for different events, such as group dinners, karaoke, outings, etc…

Method: Our MC tries to follow Jesus’ example of spending lots of time with our unreached friends, which is why we place such an emphasis on gathering weekly for ‘fun’ times. This allows us to meet each other’s non-Christian friends in a neutral setting (restaurants or homes). Once our new friends feel comfortable with the group, it’s easy to invite them to our Thursday night cell group time. This gathering is also in homes, and always involves dinner. We try hard to lead this time in a way that even people with no Christian background can participate. We also try to avoid ‘insider’ language and spiritual vocabulary, instead expressing our walk with Christ in plain Chinese / English.

Vision: To infect our Taiwanese church (Taipei Truth Church) and other Taipei churches with the ‘missional virus’ and help them flip their existing cell groups into Missional Communities. Please pray that we succeed in releasing a network of MCs around Taipei city, and bring God’s love into every community!

For more information on our vision to reach out to our unchurched Taiwanese friends, please visit our Church Planting page – thanks!